~ All things botanical in photos and words—in my West Seattle garden and elsewhere; seeing and creating art and assorted musings.

FROM SUMMER’S LAST FLING TO OCTOBER RAIN

LAST WEEK WAS A LITTLE BONUS — SUNSHINE NEARLY EVERY DAY.The summer-like temperatures are helped to extend the tomato harvest that should have begun in August, but who can complain about fresh ripened tomatoes in October? The leaves from the tomato vines have now been removed to coax the fruit into ripening before the nights are repeatedly in the 40’s. I generally do this near the end of September; seems to help. The photo above was from mid-week, the photo below is today’s rain induced harvest — some ripe, some nearly ripe, and lots of splits, twenty pounds worth. Guess that maps out some of today’s endeavors.

I KNOW THAT FALL IS REALLY HERE because the spiders have been putting in overtime to construct webs of enormous proportions and a lot of them too.

Fall is here with the nodding heads of fading pink anemone japonica. Chrysanthemums, the colors of falling leaves, are blooming, as are fall cyclamen, nerine lilies, little pale purple asters, and fall crocus. Some of the few dahlias that I have seem to be in their prime now with intensifying color in fall sunlight. And yesterday some very real October rain to shock us back into reality. One blessing is the warm temperatures are continuing (Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. it was 57°, yesterday 58°!)

Despite of the dreariness of spirit that rain engenders, all things growing look lovely with the shimmer of raindrops. So I stood on the deck under cover and shot with the zoom to see what turned up.

Nerines and columbine.

The furry pink head of dwarf fountain grass, pennisetum setaceum and salvia.

The rose ‘Playboy’ (above and below).

And finally, raindrops clinging to the leaves of the armandii clematis at the roof edge above the deck.